Banyan

Not littorally Shangri-La

The South China Sea becomes a zone of eternal dispute

CHINA and America make the weather in Asia-Pacific security. A year ago, when policy wonks and defence officials gathered in Singapore at the Shangri-La hotel for their annual “dialogue” on the subject, a chill was in the air. Robert Gates, America's defence secretary, complained about petulant rebuffs from China, which at the time put up a cold front. A hawkish Chinese strategist at the conference was unapologetic, growling that America was “taking the Chinese as the enemy”.

This year, when the dialogue reconvened on June 4th, Singapore was deluged by a succession of tropical downpours, but Mr Gates, on the brink of retirement, was in sunnier mood, praising an improvement in China-US relations. China even honoured the event, organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank, by sending its defence minister, Liang Guanglie, for the first time. By the standards of speechifying Chinese soldiers, General Liang was remarkably affable, praising a “co-operative partnership” with America.

Yet the shifts in tone from the blunt to the bland and in posture from finger-pointing to backslapping have not been matched by progress toward solving any of the two countries' underlying disputes in the region. The biggest concern Taiwan, the Korean peninsula and—which is bound to dominate any forum held in South-East Asia—the South China Sea, where the risks of failing to resolve a mesh of overlapping territorial claims are mounting.

America is not directly involved. But it has declared a “national interest” in preserving freedom of navigation in the sea. Of the 74,000 vessels, carrying one-third of global seaborne trade, that passed through the Strait of Malacca last year, most also plied the South China Sea. Commerce is not in fact under immediate threat. But America, Mr Gates insisted in Singapore, wants to remain an Asia-Pacific power. Ever twitchy about China's intentions, South-East Asian countries hope he means it.

Speaking at another annual regional forum, the Asia-Pacific Round-table, in Kuala Lumpur a few days earlier, Admiral Robert Willard, America's commander in the Pacific, said its navy aimed to maintain a “continuous presence” in the South China Sea. Despite budget constraints, America seems determined to beef up its deployment in the area. China is unlikely to welcome that. Its spokesmen are complaining more loudly about America's habit of sending surveillance ships close to its shores. In 2009 a nasty row erupted when China harassed one. In Singapore Mr Gates blamed China's lack of transparency, saying most of the snooping was into “mysteries” rather than “secrets”. China is hardly willing to accept that distinction.

More likely than conflict between the big powers, however, are clashes between China and the smaller claimants to parts of the sea. Of these, Taiwan, still notionally the Republic of China, mirrors the Beijing government's claim. This seems based on a 1940s map giving China virtually the whole sea, ignoring the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The most belligerent of the other claimants is Vietnam, which says it has sovereignty over both the Paracel Islands, in the northern part of the sea, from which China evicted it in 1974, and the Spratlys, farther south (where the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all have partial claims). On June 5th hundreds joined anti-Chinese protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City provoked by an incident in late May in which a Vietnamese ship exploring for oil and gas had its surveying cables cut by Chinese patrol boats.

Besides a wealth of marine life, the sea is believed to be rich in oil and gas: the “next Persian Gulf” in the words of one excited observer. The countries laying claim to this bounty have all been building up their navies, notably China which this week officially confirmed long-known plans to deploy its first aircraft-carrier. To counter such advances, Vietnam has ordered six Kilo-class submarines from Russia.

In 2002 China and the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations agreed to a “declaration” on a code of conduct for the sea. This is a promise to formalise a code minimising the risk that disputes between fishermen or other users of the sea might escalate into conflict. The code has not emerged. But optimists point to the restraint parties have shown since 2002 in not occupying uninhabited islands or specks of rock (though they have been energetically fortifying the places where they already had a presence). Similarly, some were cheered when China's most recent statement of its claim did not include the contentious map, and could even be construed as accepting UNCLOS principles.

Douglas Unfairbank

However, China does not inspire confidence. Around the time when the Vietnamese survey ship had its lines cut, the Philippines reported that Chinese vessels had been spotted unloading building material on an uninhabited reef, known as the Amy Douglas Bank, in waters it claims, apparently to build an oil rig. If so, this would undermine the declaration's one big achievement. “It could be the final nail in its coffin,” says Ian Storey of the Institute for South-East Asian Studies in Singapore, author of a new book on China's rise and South-East Asian security.

Even if China does not build on the reef, the perception has taken hold that it is intent on picking off the South-East Asian claimants one by one, starting with the Philippines, one of the weakest. No wonder many in the region will have been cheered by Mr Gates's response to a question about America's commitment: laying a $100 bet “that five years from now the United States' influence in this region [will be] as strong if not stronger than it is today.” An even safer bet is that, during that period, hardly any of the plethora of interlocking international disputes in the South China Sea will have been resolved.